Compare names and sizes, then CRC. Let the thing run.

This says a lot more about your biases than PJ's.

This thing is glacial, whereas the original card readers read these things as fast as you could push them through. While physical contacts wear out, the best solution is simply some optical LEDs and photoreceptors, and a timer.

Those are good answers to the question "why not a laptop?" but it still doesn't answer whether the Kindle is worth the money. It isn't.

For around a hundred bucks I got a Palm T|X. It's better than the Kindle for most purposes, and I have an extra $400 for books. Benefits of the Palm....
- it easily fits in a pocket.
- it can be read in pitch-black darkness (the Kindle can't), and the battery easily lasts long enough to read an entire book. Longer if I turn off the wi-fi and Bluetooth when I'm not using it.
- it easily fits in a pocket.
- supports multiple formats, including plain text, doc, eReader, pdf...
- it easily fits in a pocket.
- it also allows me to take notes, use a calculator, track my appointments, read email, search Google, play games, and listen to music. I can carry SDRAM cards.
- it easily fits in a pocket.

A Kindle is big, clunky, and underpowered by comparison. The Palm has a smaller screen, as you can expect (did I mention it fits easily in a pocket?). The iPhone is likewise better than the Kindle for the same reason. We're not comparing these devices to books, so your statements here are puzzling. You can search on a laptop, or PDA as well. You're going to carry a phone anyway... why not make it an iPhone or Palm Pre that gives you the connectivity, convenience and the capability you want without having to lug an expensive and frankly redundant bit of limited electronics like the Kindle?

As for the eBooks, they can be gotten in all the same places. I personally make my own books in eReader's PDB format from public domain works on Project Gutenberg. Some authors are releasing their works under Creative Commons licenses. They cost me nothing and I can give them away (never mind the lending). And there is that $400 I saved... it amounts to 40 books in the Amazon store or more than that elsewhere.